Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Getou wakes to the sound of laughter. 

It echoes in his ears before he opens his eyes. Then comes the fresh taste of grass; the scent of spring. They permeate his senses, cool and crisp, before Getou fully wakes to the sight of a patch of hill inside Tokyo Jujutsu High. 

He blinks. 

One, two, three times, just to make sure his sight isn't failing him. He's surrounded by that familiar fringe of woods, dripping green in the early morning dew. The air is so cold it cuts into his lungs, a breath-stealer in more ways than one. 

Getou rises to his feet. He knows this spot. A grassy mound at the far west end of the school, right beneath the largest tree on campus. It's a familiar place, one he had frequently visited with—

There’s no mistake, he thinks. This really is Tokyo Jujutsu High. 

“Huh,” says Getou. No alarms blaring, nobody coming to attack him. He's still in his monk robes: the very telltale garments he has worn like a trademark ever since he left this place, so why—

A bright chime of laughter sounds from afar. 

Getou turns. 

(He knows this sound.)

(Of course he does. He knows who it is, before he even sees.) 

Because there, a little ways down from where he's at, is Satoru. Lying on one of the sloping roofs of a building, one hand beneath his head. He's looking at the phone in his hand, occasionally bursting into fits of laughter. 

Getou ignores the quiet flutter in his chest. 

He's young. 

He's so young, Getou realizes. It's not the lack of a blindfold that gives it away, or the uniform he's donning, but Satoru’s body is thinner. Smaller. More lithe. The angles of his shoulders less set, his chest less broad, and he's also lounging on a roof a little more casually — one leg hooked over the other, foot tapping the air with a rhythm Getou knows he's humming, body relaxed and more easy-going — than what Getou is used to seeing from Gojo Satoru for the past ten years. 

This Satoru is young. 

Getou rises to his feet, careful not to let Satoru spot him. 

What has happened? 

Why is he here? Last thing he remembers, he was closing his eyes in bed and settling in for the night, his family in the rooms nearby, Mimiko and Nanako tucked in, and now he's simply woken up here. Seemingly transported to the past? Some sort of alternate universe? It can either be a dream, or a twisted cursed technique, or he's miraculously lugged back ten or so years ago, back to this selfsame world they lived in, back to—

Satoru's eyes snap towards him. 

Getou freezes. 

Satoru — the one in front of him, the young, 16-year-old Satoru — has his head turned towards him. Getou can't make out his eyes, both because of the distance between them and because of the dark tint of his sunglasses, but he knows with certainty that they are on him. 

Satoru is staring straight at him, completely frozen. 

And before Getou can do so much as open his mouth, or shift, or turn around, Satoru cheerily throws his arm up in a wave and shouts: 

“Suguru!”

And despite everything, Getou doesn't walk away. 

He doesn't turn around. He doesn't summon his curses and leave. He stands there, stock-still, as Satoru scrambles to stand up and then — levitating easily in the air — flies towards him. 

“Suguru!” Satoru calls again, and this time he comes to a halt, landing gracelessly on the ground in front of him and jogging the last few steps forward until he's only an arm's length away from Getou. 

And Getou, for the first time, has to tilt his chin to look down at him. 

It's… funny, seeing a shorter Satoru. 

He remembers, distantly, all the arguments they’ve had about this. Hah! You're being petty again, Suguru! Even during the growth spurts they had after their first year, Satoru has always been his height or slightly taller. It's been part of their quarrels for years. There's never been a time, as far as he can remember, when Getou had to actively tilt his head to look down at him. 

But he is now. Roughly a head shorter, Satoru stares up at Getou— hands on his hips, a slight downward tilt of his lips and his brows furrowed, the way he always gets when he's confused. 

(Getou fights the strange, sudden urge to lift him up by the underside of his arms.) 

Satoru stares at him for a beat longer. 

Then he lifts a hand to his own face, holds the frame of his glasses, and pulls them down the length of his nose until his eyes are visible, clear as sky. All blue. And it cuts Suguru right then: that feeling of staring at someone you knew in your youth, only to find the same eyes still there. 

“...My Six Eyes tell me,” Satoru says hesitantly, “you're Getou Suguru.”

Getou doesn't answer. 

He only manages to stare back at Satoru, motionless. And so, of course, Satoru takes that as an affirmative sign that he should continue speaking. 

“But, uh… Hmm.” Satoru frowns, holding his cheeks with his thumb and forefinger. “Why are you so big, Suguru? And what’s with these robes? Don't you get hot in them? Man, they're so ugly! It makes you look like a grandma, y'know, which isn’t really appealing if you’re trying to seduce those girls that have been making googly eyes at you for the past three months.” 

“...Wow,” is the first word Getou says to him. 

“You can talk!” Satoru grins. “And here I thought you were finally charmed by my looks to the point of being speechless.”

Getou stares at him, blinking. 

“Hey.” Satoru scowls. “What's with this lack of a reaction? Did you knock your head during a mission or something?” 

“No, you just…” Getou brings a hand up to cover his own mouth, tries to hide the smile that's threatening to form there. “I forgot how amusing you were.” 

Satoru tilts his head questioningly. 

How interesting, Getou thinks. His mind reels, nearly tripping over itself as he tries to conjure up explanations for how this could be. He should be getting back to his own timeline or universe, shouldn't he? There has to be some causation from this. An upset of whatever natural balance there is. 

Does Satoru know anything? 

Would he make the same face as you, Getou wonders quietly. That sadness and that wrath, in Shinjuku and in every place onwards. Would he make the same—

“Suguru?” 

Getou’s attention focuses back. 

Well, he thinks, after a moment. No matter. This entire thing is entertaining, either way. He'd be insane not to mess with it a little bit, because time travel or dream or cursed technique notwithstanding, he wouldn’t just pass up an opportunity to tease Satoru like this.

“So,” says Getou, crossing his arms and leaning against the tree, “what are you doing right now?”

Satoru squints at him skeptically. 

Getou smiles. “What's that look?”

“Why do you seem…” Satoru squints harder. “Scheme-y?”

“Your imagination is always so creative,” says Getou. “What kind of ulterior motives do you think I'd even have?” 

Satoru doesn't reply.

“Also, you're wrong, by the way,” says Getou. “I don't try to seduce girls.”

“Those upper-years from Shoto High would argue otherwise,” says Satoru. 

“They're in their own heads.” Getou waves his hand dismissively. Those delusional monkeys. God, he hates them. “Either way, you haven't answered my question.”

“Eh?”

“What,” Getou asks patiently, “are you doing right now?” 

It's a subtle invitation. They both know it. Satoru frowns, clearly dubious, his brows knitted in suspicion and his eyes narrowed. It's a good look on him, Getou notes privately. I've almost forgotten. 

“Tell me what happened to you first,” demands Satoru. “You're not my Suguru transformed, are you?”

Well, now. 

Getou smiles. Not a lot of things have changed, have they: Satoru has always been sharper than he wants to give him credit for. Despite all the silly theatrics he goes out of his way to perform, or the childish petulance, or the lazy façade, he's sharper than he realizes. 

And so Getou takes a step forward. He leans down, closer and closer, and stops only when his face is several inches away from Satoru. 

Satoru, to his credit, doesn't shy away. 

“Unfortunately,” Getou says quietly, “I don't really know what happened to me. You'll have to help me figure it out, Satoru.” 

Satoru stares at him. 

Getou expects an outright rejection. He expects a disgruntled no, what, are you kidding me, and then maybe Satoru would just pick up the phone and dial the Getou Suguru of this timeline, hold Getou down until his Suguru arrives. It's what would make sense, anyhow, with the way Satoru deals with things and with the amount of doubt Satoru has for everyone. Who would simply agree to go along with a practical stranger like this? Even if it's an adult version of his own friend?

So Getou is surprised, naturally, when Satoru clears his throat, looks to the side to avoid making eye contact, and says: 

“Okay.”

…Huh. 

Getou blinks several times, just to process. 

Trust, huh, he thinks after a pause, unsure if it's amusement or something else that is roiling in his stomach. Didn't realize you had so much of that for me. 

“...Good,” Getou says instead. “Let's go eat, then!” 

_____

This is what happens next: 

Getou tries to summon his stingray. He fails. 

He tries to summon his dragon. He fails. 

He tries to summon any other aerial curses he possesses. He fails. 

Satoru looks like he’s trying to hold back laughter— his lips are pursed together, eyes crinkled in mirth, and god, Getou now feels the faint urge to smack him upside the head. Satoru has always been bad at hiding his expressions. 

In the end, Satoru does burst into laughter. In the end, Getou does smack him upside the head. 

In the end, they leave the premises of Tokyo Jujutsu High by foot, and hail a taxi down to the city center. 

_____

This is what Getou gathers: 

The Tokyo Jujutsu High alarm doesn’t ring. Makes sense, given that he’s now back in his school years when Getou Suguru is not a renowned, registered curse user. No one comes after him. 

Also, he can’t use cursed energy. 

He still has cursed energy. He can feel it. Satoru can, too, judging by the way he’s able to immediately recognize Getou right off the bat. But it seems like Getou is unable to wield his cursed energy at all; he can't let it out, or use cursed techniques, or summon any of his cursed spirits to form. 

“Maybe with this, I can finally beat you in everything,” says Satoru. 

“Oh, shut up,” Getou says lightly. 

What a shame, too. He would've been able to find the girls, or carry out his plans much earlier if he's able to use his cursed technique. Mimiko and Nanako must still be in the village unattacked, but he's just stuck here, now, practically faring no better than them. 

And there are, he deduces, three possible explanations for this situation.

One, he’s in a dream. Would explain a lot of things, even if it seems too real to be one. Though if I am dreaming, he thinks, then I've remembered Satoru in his youth much more vividly than I thought. 

Two, somebody has performed their cursed technique on him. Perhaps this is all a hallucination, a trick of the mind to get him back to a period that's already behind him, that he's already pushed to the corner of his memories. How foul this would be. How interesting. If this turns out to be the work of a curse, Getou would love to consume them when he gets out. 

And three, he's time-traveled. 

Seems unlikely, Getou decides as an afterthought, given that he remembers none of this. There were no gaps in his memory, no events during his time as a Tokyo Jujutsu High student that were even remotely close to this. Satoru would've blabbered on and on to him non-stop, also. This probably isn't time travel— unless it is a new breach in the timeline: something that would slightly alter the course of their history. 

And if this is the case, Getou should be careful as to what he's saying. 

_____

“So,” says Getou, “I’m from the future.”

“What?” says Satoru. 

They're walking side-by-side down a crowded street in Shinjuku. The tiled pavement stretches beneath all the people milling by, cut across by boys in dark jackets whooping around corners with hair like the grease of their bikes. Getou wonders, vaguely, how it would feel to snap off their necks. 

“I,” repeats Getou, “am from the future.”

Satoru blinks at him a few times. Then he says, simply, “Oh.”

“You know,” says Getou, “for someone so loud and talkative, I didn't expect this dry a reaction.” 

“I mean, I don’t really know what else to say.” Satoru crosses his arms and tilts his head. “You sure, Suguru? I thought you were hit by some kind of cursed technique that makes you older or something. Isn't that more likely?”

“Are you trying to argue this?” Getou asks, amused. 

“I'm just saying!” defends Satoru. “When did you get here?”

“Just a few minutes before you spotted me, actually.”

“How'd you get here?”

“I don't know.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Ew,” says Satoru. “That's so old.”

“Easy now,” Getou says calmly. “I can still beat you in hand-to-hand combat, you know, even if I can't use cursed energy.”

“Yeah, don't remind me,” mutters Satoru, wincing. “So you're not the one who transported yourself back?” 

Getou shakes his head. 

“Hmm.” Satoru scratches his neck, one hand in his pocket, and frowns up at the sky like he's deep in logicizing his way through this. It's always so entertaining, Getou thinks, to watch him move with such careless abandon, expressive like he's laying his heart out bare. He's easy to read if you know where to look; even, Getou adds privately, when you have grown to be twenty-seven, Satoru. “From the future…” Satoru mumbles. “From the future… from the…” 

And then his face brightens. 

Getou, well-versed in every single one of Satoru’s tells, knows the question that is coming. 

“What am I like?!” Satoru asks excitedly. 

“Right,” says Getou. “How predictable.”

“Come on, it's the number one question!” Satoru looks eager, his smile barely contained. “I bet I'm still as strong, right? Still as handsome? I'll wager that I have a much better fashion sense than you, judging by those monk robes you were wearing earlier. Yikes. Is that a daily outfit, by the way?”

“Don't insult someone you're trying to get answers out of,” says Getou. 

"I bet I still look young,” says Satoru, nodding to himself. “Good genes and all. What do I do? Do I travel a lot? Am I better at exorcising curses than you? Am I more charming as an old man?”

“Twenty-seven is not old,” says Getou. 

“Sure it is.”

Getou wonders, vaguely, how on earth he's managed to not drop Satoru from the stingray more times than he has. “Well,” he says, curbing around the words. “You’re unorthodox. You’re outrageous. Still into sweets, but the adult you is so serious that it's much more difficult to talk to you—” 

“Suguru.”

Getou smiles pleasantly. “And,” he adds, “you’ve gotten pretty good at teaching.”

Satoru looks like Getou's just murdered someone. 

Getou fights down the urge to laugh. He can read in the turn of Satoru's lip and the divot between his brows that he does not like to hear that, not really. Satoru looks bleak enough to give himself a shiner. 

“You have students that you seem to annoy quite a bit,” says Getou. “But I think they look up to you.” 

“Ugh.” Satoru seems disappointed in himself. 

“You're good at it, Satoru,” says Getou, and he's surprised by how sincere it sounds. “You also go on quite a few overseas trips and still use pretty extreme methods, which I'm not sure how it pans out with those higher-ups, but you probably antagonize them to the point where they have to let it slide, anyway.” 

“Okay, now that I can get on board with,” says Satoru.

“Of course you'd say that,” Getou says fondly. 

“What about you?” Satoru grins, with a hint of mischief. “Do the students like me more than you?”

Getou keeps the smile etched on his face, and doesn't answer. 

It’s almost blindsiding, hearing this now. He doesn't want to turn and look too closely lest it aches, but he knows what expression Satoru must be wearing: eyes like glass in the faint light, blue and bright and with none of the guard that Gojo Satoru at twenty-seven has harboured over the decade. Adoring and pellucid. 

And for some reason, Getou doesn't want to remember him. He doesn't want to remember Satoru older; the permanently vacant look on his face, the white bandages, the quiet stance. The empty tone of his voice when he whispered Suguru, undone underneath him on the sheets, his hair a tangled mess when he finally opened up to Getou's kiss like he was shaking apart. 

The way he never wanted to face him, even if Getou asked. The regret that always followed. The disappointed stares afterwards as he buttoned up his shirt— blankly drawn either at himself or the both of them, Getou could never tell. 

“There,” Getou decides to say, finally. “Don't get too ahead of yourself now.” 

That seems to be a sufficient answer. Satoru smirks, apparently satisfied with how Getou basically dodged the question. 

And then his face lightens up.

Getou lifts a brow, curious. Satoru doesn't give him any explanation, any caution as he reaches into his own pocket, fishes out his phone, flips it open, and vigorously types something into it. 

“Texting someone?” asks Getou, already knowing full well who it may be. 

Satoru doesn't answer. He only finishes whatever he's punching out onto his phone, then turns it around and shows it to Getou. The messaging box glows bright on the screen, the words set clear: 

SUGURU!! <

Im hanging out with a cooler version of you <

Hes 27 <

Wanna see pics??? <

“Ah,” says Getou. 

“He should be done with his mission by now,” Satoru says cheerfully, “so he can join us in no time.”

“...Is this all you're telling him?” asks Getou.

Satoru looks confused. “Should I be saying something more?” 

“No,” says Getou, and tries not to look too amused. It's jarringly odd to know exactly what the reaction would be; even odder to see in real-time how Satoru speaks, unintentionally, with so little tact. With the way Satoru is, Getou's surprised he never got himself checked for heart troubles. 

“Anyway,” says Satoru. “It'll probably take him an hour to get here, since he just finished with his mission.”

“Oh,” says Getou, "I think he'll be here faster than that."

“In the meantime,” continues Satoru, “do you wanna eat, Suguru? I'm not feeling like sweets right now, but we can go get zaru soba.”

Getou turns to look at him. 

Satoru’s staring back at him, expectant. He's smiling lopsidedly too, which only makes an odd sensation flit over Getou like the shock of blood in a bruise, because Satoru would never turn down sweets, Getou knows. He knows this for a fact. 

“I think I already have a good guess,” Getou says, after a while of silence. “But what year is this?” 

“Huh?” says Satoru. “Oh. Nah, I won't tell you. You should use your brain and figure it out by yourself, Suguru, can't you tell from all the hints here, or are you too old to think now?” 

Getou gives him a look. 

“It’s 2005,” says Satoru. “December. Why?”

December 2005. 

December 2005, muses Getou, rolling the words over in his head. The memories come back to him, piecemeal. “That's only a month after that mission, huh,” he says quietly. “And you already know my favourite food.” 

Satoru stares at him for a few moments. 

Then he smiles, warm and teasing. As soft as an inside joke. “You just never shut up about it, is all,” Satoru says, and then he lets out a laugh, full and hearty, when Getou rolls his eyes at him and turns around — the sound reverberating in his ears — and walks on ahead. 

Chapter Text

Ample as his memories of Satoru were, some of them are brighter, kinder. Too fresh at times, and full of so much more laughter than Getou had any right to remember. That’s what happens when you care for someone, he supposed. That’s what happens when you catapult yourself into the illusion of a life beside another person.

Suguru.

Satoru was laughing, then. 

Getou laughed in return and felt himself get pushed over to the closet door, his head knocked against the wood. They were sixteen then — so young they couldn’t have known anything — and they had waited for the footsteps to fade in the hallway before they grinned at each other. Then they were kissing, warm and happy, breathless into each other’s mouths. It was summer. 

_____

“Suguru.”

Getou looks up from where he’s sitting on the bench. 

Satoru’s walking towards him, a bottle of water in hand. Even after nearly an hour of spending time with him, Getou still hasn’t gotten used to Satoru like this: sixteen, boyish, emotions clear and unguarded on his face. 

“You got me water?” Getou smiles. “How sweet.” 

“I don’t know how you deal with being in those grandma robes.” Satoru’s nose wrinkles. “Aren’t you, like, sweating in that? God, that’s disgusting.” 

“You’re fun to be around,” says Getou. “Give it here.” 

Satoru hands him the water bottle. It’s cold. The condensation wets his palm, slicking along the lengths of his fingers, and it’s an admittedly refreshing feel to the past half-hour of walking around. Getou opens the cap, takes three gulps, and exhales. 

“What were you thinking about?” asks Satoru. 

Getou glances over to Satoru, who is now shuffling down to sit next to him on the bench. There’s a passive expression on his face as he stares back at Getou— an expression Satoru always wears when he’s curious about something, but senses the sensitivity of the subject to not probe. He can be surprisingly tactful, Getou thinks faintly, at the strangest of times. “Why do you ask?” 

“Were you thinking about my death?” asks Satoru. “Or me not being friends with you anymore? Or the fact that your favourite zaru soba restaurant closed early so we didn’t get to it in time?” 

Getou raises his eyebrows. “Did I look sad?” 

“A little bit.”

“Hmm,” muses Getou. “Well, I’m not exactly sad.”

“You sure?”

“Just contemplative,” says Getou. “As one does, you see, when one teleports into another dimension back into the past. Bit occupied in my thoughts here.” 

Satoru makes a petulant face.

Getou looks away from him, and gazes out at the park before them instead. As if on cue, a faint strain of music echoes in the distance, and a group of children rushes by them, the indistinct chatter of their voices raised in excitement. 

He isn’t sure why he’s here. He isn’t sure who or what has transported him back to this place— without allowing him to use his cursed energy or cursed technique, no less. Perhaps it has already put a dent in the timeline, and all Suguru needs to do is rescue the girls and set his plan in motion many years prior. But how long, he thinks, would I be here for? God, he’s never been fond of the temporal paradox. Time travel can really mess with your head. 

“So,” says Satoru, “tell me more about our future.” 

Getou glances at him. Satoru has one leg crossed over the other now, elbow on his knee and his chin resting easily on his palm. There’s a cheeky grin on his face.

“Or tell me more about myself, too,” suggests Satoru. “I’m always happy to hear that.” 

Getou huffs out a laugh. “You’re so full of yourself.” 

“Come on, Suguru,” says Satoru. “It isn’t normal that we get old-and-ugly Getou Suguru to come visit us! At least humour me a little. I feel like you’re even meaner than my Suguru, except you’re more subtle about it. Did I become the most powerful sorcerer to ever exist? I bet Utahime’s sick of me being great at everything I do, huh?”

Getou lifts a brow at him.

“Alright,” Satoru groans. “Fine.” He leans back against the benchrest with a peevish sigh, arms and legs splayed out lackadaisically. It makes Getou feel tilted again, for the dozenth time— the way Satoru’s acting so carelessly around him. It is such a strange thing now. “Tell me what you were doing before you came here, then.” 

“Oh. Well.” Getou tilts his head. “I was at home. I was sleeping with the girls next door.” 

“With—” Satoru starts. His eyes widen, and he’s sitting up straighter as though squaring himself for something. If he were standing, Getou thinks amusedly, he would’ve lost his balance. “With what? With the girls next door?”

“It’s not what you think,” says Getou. 

“You,” Satoru begins, and then is stunned into silence again. He looks like one of those dolls Mimiko has, all wide eyes and gaping, looking like they’re in a permanent state of ridiculous surprise. It nearly makes Getou laugh. “Are you…?” 

He doesn’t finish the sentence. Getou looks at him, draws out their eye contact for a few more seconds, but Satoru doesn’t finish the sentence. He averts his gaze instead, swallowing. 

And ah, well. Perhaps Getou shouldn’t tease him so much. Satoru has always been so indignant and flustered whenever Getou hides part of the truth, tries to get Satoru riled up, tells half-lies to get the reaction he wants out of Satoru; but he can’t help it. It’s simply too amusing, and this is too golden an opportunity. Not his fault. 

Getou smiles. “They’re my daughters, actually.” 

Satoru’s expression does a funny thing, then. He looks like he doesn’t know how to use it— eyes bugged out comically and his mouth agape. Getou has to stifle a laugh. 

“You,” Satoru manages, his voice a little too high. He clears his throat. “You have daughters?”

“Two of them,” Getou says brightly. “I’m a pretty good father, I’d say.” 

“Oh,” says Satoru. “I— what? Really?”

“Whyever would I lie to you?”

Satoru opens his mouth. Then closes it wordlessly. It takes him a moment to process, and then he’s dropping his gaze down to the ground, the corner of his jaw jumping a little. 

Getou bites down on his lower lip. All right, he almost feels bad. He almost does. He genuinely would spare Satoru some pity and retract his statement if it weren’t for all those times Satoru ran around the school yards trying to throw things at Getou’s head to get his attention, or dropping things into Getou’s pencil case, or goading Getou into releasing his curses and getting them both in trouble. 

Although…

Although this expression — the one on Satoru’s face right now — is something Getou never noticed when he was younger. He is just realizing now how obvious it is: the downturned mouth, the small frown, the slightly disappointed look in his eyes. The emotions that have always been evident there. Getou had, somehow, missed all of it as a teenager. 

It would’ve saved us both so much time, he thinks quietly, wouldn’t it. 

Getou opens his mouth, about to rescind, when— 

“I bet you’re actually a real bad father, Suguru,” Satoru says suddenly. Loudly. He perks up from where he’s sitting, a grin plastered on his face, seemingly back to normal. If Getou hadn’t been so trained, so used to seeing Satoru with all his defenses up over the past few years, he would’ve believed the forced smile here. “I bet they like their good-looking uncle Gojo Satoru much better! Don’t they? I’d always give them treats, which is already so much more generous and considerate and kid-friendly than you.” 

“...Well,” Getou says, amused. “I would say they tolerate you because they like me.” 

“But I don’t see what’s so likeable about you.” 

“Watch it,” warns Getou, but he’s smiling gently. He leans back against the bench, one hand over the armrest behind Satoru’s back. It makes Satoru tense up slightly, shoulders instantly squaring up just the tiniest bit; and Getou files the image away to the back of his mind. 

He’s about to clarify the situation — about to tell Satoru that no, these are not actually my biological daughters, I didn’t elope with some woman, don’t go moping like that — when, suddenly, they both sense it. 

“Oh,” says Satoru. 

“Oh,” says Getou, and then adds, with an embarrassed chuckle: “Oh dear.” 

It doesn’t take long for him to appear.

It doesn’t take long at all, once they’ve both sensed his presence. Getou stares up at the sky, watching the endless blue of it veiled with a few wisps of clouds, and waits. 

It takes approximately six seconds. 

The first thing they see is a black dot in the sky. It gets larger, and larger, and larger at an increasingly fast pace; and then, in another two seconds, Getou is able to make out the stingray. It flies towards them with a sort of speed and urgency that Getou, personally, denies ever actually happened. He surely has more class than that. 

But the stingray lands on the ground roughly several seconds after. The boy who sits on top of it — hair tied up in a bun, brows furrowed together, mouth pressed tightly together into some semblance of composure — quickly climbs down. 

“Suguru!” calls Satoru. 

Ah, thinks Getou, yes. This Suguru. This Suguru, with his clothes all disheveled and his sleeves all rumpled. This Suguru, climbing off the stingray as though he’s just run a mentally-draining, enervating marathon. This Suguru who is young, who is sixteen, who honestly looks a lot more pathetic than Getou expected him to look. Hmm. Disappointing. His younger version isn’t as calm and collected as he thought. 

“Whoa,” exclaims Satoru, “Suguru. Was the mission bad or something?”

Suguru glances at him, looking up and down. Checking your Satoru for injuries, I see, Getou thinks knowingly, before Suguru snaps his head over to look at the older version of himself. His eyes, after confusion briefly flits over it, hardens into a glare. 

“What,” he says, voice barely restrained, “is this?” 

“Suguru,” Satoru says cheerfully, “meet Suguru!” 

They lock eyes with each other. 

A few moments pass. 

“Oh, pull yourself together,” is the first sentence Getou says to his younger self. 

Suguru stares at him for a moment. The silence hangs between them, stunned and drawn and wide-eyed— and then, predictably, Suguru’s face contorts into a full-on storm. If his earlier glare was enough to drill holes into Getou, this look can probably laser-slice him in five. My, oh my. “Who are you?” 

Getou sighs. “I have to say, I’m quite embarrassed of myself. You can’t figure out who I am?” 

“Is this a technique?” Suguru still has his composure intact. His voice isn’t loud, but the words are enunciated clearly, warningly. “Is this an illusion? What have you done?” 

“I didn’t do anything,” says Getou. “Honestly, you’re always so quick to blame yourself, aren’t you?”

“Answer my questions.” 

“Can’t answer if I don’t know, you idiot.” 

“Oh man, oh my god,” says Satoru excitedly, whipping out his phone. “Do you guys think we can go back to campus now? Shoko would love to see this. She would pay to see this!” 

“Shut up, Satoru,” hisses Suguru. 

“Yes, Satoru, don’t contribute,” says Getou airily. “As much as I appreciate you spreading joy to our friend, I would appreciate it if we don’t go back to campus in the foreseeable future.” 

Satoru is in the middle of clicking the camera on his phone. He blinks, pausing at this statement, and his movements slow as though catching up to his own reaction. It takes him a second to slowly look up at Getou, tilting his head. “Eh? Why not?” 

Getou opens his mouth to respond, before he realizes his slip-up. 

Right. 

That’s right. This is the past. This isn’t his own universe right now. There has never been any estrangement, never been any orders of execution on sight for him, and Getou has forgotten, momentarily, that he has never done anything that went against the jujutsu world in this timeline, and that Yaga and the others would welcome him back with open arms if he returns. If he wants to return. 

But that still seems strange, isn’t it? Given that he’s already launched an…

(Has he launched an attack?) 

“It’s boring there,” says Getou. “I don’t want to have traveled back in time just to end up on your campus. What kind of vacation would that be?” 

Suguru frowns. “You traveled back in time?” 

“I’ll explain to you later,” Satoru whispers to him. 

“Neither of us knows what’s going on,” says Getou, giving Satoru a mock-stern, reprimanding look. “We can update you, if you’d like. But this conversation will require some length of time.” He crosses his arms and smiles placidly at them. The setting sun is basking their skin golden, the colour of caution. “Why don’t we head to an inn? It’d be nice to lie down, after all this walking. Won’t you two keep me company?” 

“Yeah!” says Satoru.

“No,” says Suguru. His frown is a clear I’d rather die. “We should notify Yaga.”  

God, the desire to wring his own little neck. How did he live eighteen years of his life this way? “That’s all right if you don’t want to come,” says Getou, maintaining his winning smile. “I’m not offended.” 

“Suguru, come on.” Satoru waves his hand dramatically. “It’s just you.” 

Suguru doesn’t look at Satoru. He trains his eyes, instead, on Getou, as sternly and solidly as stone. 

And what a strange thing it is, to know yourself just enough. Getou can practically hear the cogs in Suguru’s brain whirring, putting the pieces together: he’s me, I’m him, he’s me from the future, will Satoru be safe with him, should I notify authority? What a strange, annoying thing. Getou also knows, by way of identity, that Suguru must be seeing something odd about him, something off. Getou knows Suguru is seeing a very small glimpse into who he is in the future. It’s part of the reason why Suguru is not smiling right now— not being polite, not putting on his pleasant mask, not pretending to be nice. He doesn’t even like Getou. 

What a strange thing, to be subconsciously aware of yourself. 

“It’s alright if you don’t want to come,” repeats Getou. He refrains from adding Suguru, because as experienced as he is in all things occult, voicing his own name to call somebody else definitely verges on the realm of uncomfortable. “You can take your leave.”

Suguru narrows his eyes. 

“It just means, though, that you’ll leave me alone with Satoru,” Getou adds, with a cheerful glance at the other boy. “Doesn’t it, Satoru?”

And that does the job. 

Suguru fumes in silence, no doubt endlessly cursing at Getou in the darker corners of his mind. But there is nothing — not one thing — that could’ve possibly stopped him from following them. Satoru laughs wildly as he drapes his arm over Suguru’s shoulder, looking ecstatic about the outcome, teasing nonsense into Suguru’s ear while they trail closely behind Getou. 

Getou watches them. He listens to their voices as he leads them down the stonepath of the park, through the rows of greenery and trees beside them. He listens to Satoru’s laugh, young and bright, as they are led down a path towards somewhere older, dearer. Somewhere familiar. 

_____

We’ve been sneaking around so much, said Satoru. Don’t you think there ought to be another place we can stay? To not let the others overhear? 

Oh, you’re being prudent now? said Getou. 

Shut up, Suguru. You know as well as I do that Shoko is bringing Utahime over constantly just to show us that the walls are thin. Satoru makes a face. Very very thin. 

That they are, said Getou, and they exchanged a somber, knowing look. 

They were seventeen— just a few months after the mission with Riko. Things were still murky and uncertain back then, not like the clarity of vision that Getou had now. They were still fooling around like it was nobody’s business. Perhaps it wasn’t. 

What do you suggest? asked Getou. 

Satoru had frowned at him, all serious and contemplative. It was one of his rarer looks. 

I don’t know, said Satoru. Do you know any motels, Suguru? Hotels? Money’s not an issue, ‘cause I can just nick it off my clan. Anywhere’s fine as long as Nanami doesn’t send us death glares in the morning and we can be as loud as we—

Got it, said Getou, laughing. He looked at Satoru fondly, and oh, hell. Perhaps it was because of the cold weather. Perhaps it was because Satoru had looked so eager, or because the sunlight was always soft over his hair, or because their touches always seemed to wash away the stench of Riko’s blood on his hands. Or perhaps it was because of nothing at all, really— when Getou had smiled at him indulgently and said, I do know somewhere we can stay.  

_____

“Whoa!” exclaims Satoru. “What is this place?” 

“A ryokan,” says Getou. 

Ryokan: a traditional inn. Located in an isolated neighbourhood, away from the busy streets. The interiors of it give off a peaceful air, calm amongst the tatami flooring and the soft lights painting it gold. Even the room they’ve booked is brined in silence, despite being in an occupied hall. 

“This must be expensive,” says Suguru. 

“Never too expensive to enjoy,” says Getou. “Plus, I have you two here. Gotta fancy it up for the rare occasion, don’t I?” 

Satoru grins. Suguru glares at the wall. 

The ryokan they’ve booked is spacious. Two adjacent rooms separated by paper doors, with a floor-to-ceiling view of the verdant garden outside. A low table in the centre, four futons. The sound of a soft breeze drafting in. 

Getou slides open the garden doors. “I’ll take one room, you two take the other.”

“Why?” Satoru scowls. “You don’t wanna stay with us? We can talk and catch up all night! I haven’t asked you so many things!” 

“I’d rather not be in the same room as you two,” says Getou. “Lots of things wrong with that.”

“What things?” asks Satoru. 

“Well, first of all, the mini version of myself looks like he’s about to perform ritual suicide just to keep me from being here,” says Getou. “Can’t say it’ll be nice to close my eyes around that.”

“I don’t dislike you being here,” says Suguru, after Satoru shoots him a look.

“Oh, I know how much of a liar you are,” says Getou. “And second of all, Satoru, you have a habit of rolling around. I will spare my stomach the trouble.” 

Both Satoru and Suguru pause in their movements. 

“…Wait,” says Satoru. “Suguru, how do you know that?” 

Crap. 

“Ah,” Getou scrambles. “You told me this during our third year.” 

“Oh.” Satoru raises his eyebrows. “Did I really?”

“Are we sure we can just stay here overnight?” Suguru mutters dubiously. “Wouldn’t Yaga be worried?”

“We’ve already texted him, haven’t we?” Satoru puts both hands on his hips. “We already told him we won’t come back for the night. It’s fine. There’s nothing he can even worry about, when it comes to his strongest students.” Suguru gives him a look at that, but Satoru doesn’t even appear to notice. He raises both arms in the air and yawns, a jungle cat in a stretch, and god, Getou thinks fondly, distantly, you’re always so carefree. “Besides, we can just tell him tomorrow that your mission got prolonged. Actually— wait, what was your mission about again?” 

“A missing person case,” says Suguru. “A lady in Shinjuku reported it.” 

“Who went missing?”

“Her husband.”

“Don’t they always?” says Getou, smiling. “There you go. A perfect excuse to spend the night here.” He ignores whatever heated look Suguru sends his way, and steps over towards the adjacent room. Cushioned by the mat and socks, his footsteps are silent across the floor, and it is this, strangely, that reminds Getou of the temples he used to invite those useless monkeys in, all quietude and serenity. All those visitations from lesser beings, from the fuckers begging for a better life. It makes him want to crack someone’s skull open. See the blood across their bile. 

Getou turns around instead, and smiles at the boys.  

“You two make yourselves comfortable,” he says pleasantly. “I will go ahead and change.” 

The yukata isn’t hard to put on. 

When Getou was younger, he had struggled with it way more than he does now, constantly requiring the help of someone else to fit the folds in for him. But things always get easier with time. 

Getou comes back after an incense’s length of time, fully donned in a traditional yukata. Both Satoru and Suguru are currently perched by the table, mumbling quietly to each other. Satoru snaps his head up once he hears footsteps — right as Getou enters the room — and gracelessly points at him. 

“There,” Satoru tells Suguru. “Say that to his face.”

“Satoru,” hisses Suguru. 

“My, my.” Getou suppresses a smile. He folds his hands across his chest, and begins to step over to where they are. “Glad to know I’m the topic of conversation even when I’m not a part of it. Care to enlighten me?” 

Suguru just ends up huffing indignantly, avoiding his eyes. Satoru, on the other hand, opens his mouth to begin babbling what is most likely to be inane half-truths— when suddenly he snaps his mouth shut. 

It only takes Getou a split-second to register what’s happening. Then he is biting back an amused smile, once it dawns on him. 

There is no longer a smug grin on Satoru’s face. There is, instead, something as fervent as windswept as a secret is. His eyes trail after Getou’s movements, moving from the loose strands of his hair down his shoulders, to the beige yukata worn on him, to the outer black robe, to the sliver of skin at his ankle where his socks and attire don’t cover. Satoru stares at them, at him. Drinking Getou in like a man who has spent all his life in the desert. 

Getou wants to laugh. “Liking the yukata?”

“I’ve…” Satoru clears his throat. He looks, of all things, at a loss for words. “I’ve never seen you in that before.” 

“That’s a yes, then,” says Getou. 

Satoru averts his gaze. He turns — as an obvious, feeble attempt to distract himself from doing something embarrassing — to the boy beside him. “Suguru, why— why don’t you ever wear anything like that?”

Suguru’s face, as expected, is shuttered. His expression has turned a couple shades darker now, and Getou would have found this funnier, would have found some twisted entertainment in this if he didn’t know exactly which emotions his younger version is feeling right now. What a ridiculous thing to be jealous of oneself. “...I don’t want to,” Suguru mutters. “It doesn’t look that good.”

Getou hums. “Then unfortunately for you, I suspect there will be a huge fashion change in your future.”

Suguru shoots him a biting look. 

“Why would you wear those monk robes when you can just wear this all the time?” says Satoru. “Jeez, tell me I dress better than you in the future. Tell me I dress the same as I do now.”

“You dress the same as you do now,” says Getou. 

“Oh, thank god,” says Satoru. 

“Except you have white blindfolds over your eyes,” adds Getou, “instead of glasses. Seeing your eyes will become a rare sighting, I have to say.” 

Satoru wrinkles his nose, considering the idea with a look of disgruntled tolerance. It’s a reaction so endearing that Getou turns his face away to hide the laughter that crosses over it; and in doing so, he catches the expression on Suguru’s face. 

And ah. How tiring. 

Suguru is casting his gaze downwards, over to the side so that Satoru can’t see his expression. He only hides his face like this when he thinks he’ll lose some of it in whatever plays there being witnessed. Getou knows this, knows him, understands himself enough to read him this way. He can practically feel the emotion from the turn of his jaw, from the set of his shoulders, from his straightened back. As though Suguru has found a way to let Getou chisel back into his own mind. 

Getou wants to burn him alive. 

“So?” he says, his voice saccharine-sweet. “What’s on your mind, little me?”

Suguru glances up at him. His expression is bare, readable. He looks like someone grasping at straws, and Getou knows what that’s like, knows how much it feels like a damn log in your throat to choke on. 

“Are you really that bothered,” Getou pushes on, because he is feeling an inexplicable pettiness, “about the yukata?” 

Suguru’s expression closes off completely. 

And then he is standing, so abruptly his knee brushes against the table to creak it an inch forward. Satoru starts, craning his neck up to look at him in alarm, but Suguru doesn’t seem to notice. There’s only a quietly mumbled, “I’m going to get some air,” before he turns around, and hastily makes his way out of the room. 

“Suguru!” 

Satoru clambers up from where he’s sitting. He only makes it two steps towards the door— when Getou places a hand over his shoulder, gentle. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Getou puts on a calm, reassuring smile. Or at least, he hopes it is reassuring. There’s an irritation inside him that is large and fanged, slavering in the dark, and he isn’t sure if it’s aimed at Suguru or at himself. “Seems like I just pushed him a little too far.” 

Satoru stares at him. His eyes dart towards the door, back and forth a couple times as though waging an internal debate. In the end, though, he only settles for directing his gaze straight back at Getou, stiffening it into an almost glare. 

…And this is the first time, probably, that Satoru who looks this young is being so genuine with his annoyance towards him. 

“Sorry about that,” says Getou.

“Only you would apologize about upsetting yourself,” Satoru says, after a pause. “What was that about, Suguru?” 

Getou shrugs. “Just some harmless mocking. He’ll come around to it.” He makes his way over to the table — half to avoid any further probing questions — and seats himself on the far side of it, the one closest to the garden outside. 

Satoru stares at him. Getou’s smile is still etched on his face as he leans his cheek against his palm, elbow propped up on the table. He refrains from widening it to a grin when, after a hesitation, Satoru follows suit and sits down opposite him. 

“Good,” says Getou. “So. Now that we’ve settled down here— any ideas for how to solve this tiny, abnormal problem of mine?” 

Satoru makes a face. “Are you so eager to leave?” It comes out almost petulantly. “You don’t wanna stay here longer?”

“To what, hear you babble nonsense and push your terrible influence onto me?” Getou says gently. “No thanks.” 

“I am wounded, Suguru,” Satoru sighs mournfully. “If you love me, you should love me through my horrors.”

“Everything loveable about you is horrifying,” says Getou. “But really, though. I do have to get back.” 

“Eh? Why? Just another week won’t hurt!” 

Getou smiles regretfully. “I do have people to take care of back there, you know.”

Satoru opens his mouth — perhaps ready to form the words Like who? around his mouth — except he seems to recall something then. It’s nearly pitiful, the drop in his expression. “...Okay.” Satoru’s mouth tightens into a thin line. He leans back on his hands above the tatami mat, one leg propped up crassly. The furrow of his brows betray any casualty he’s trying to exude with that stance. “Fine. I get it. Your daughters are waiting for you, aren’t they?”

“Actually,” says Getou, “they’re not—” 

“If you want to find the perpetrator,” Satoru cuts in, “we should know who the great law-abiding, uptight, righteous Getou Suguru has pissed off recently. Who did you make your enemy?”

“Oh dear.” Getou leans back, chuckling. “Should I start listing?”

Satoru squints at him suspiciously. “Have you really made a lot of enemies?”

“I suppose I’ve changed quite a bit.”

“You’re a little meaner, I think,” agrees Satoru. “But I don’t know. Hmm. Oh, what about time? Any enemies who can mess with time?” 

“Don’t have any,” says Getou, and then, without thinking: “Not since our first mission together.” 

Satoru blinks at him. 

There is a long, shared silence. Getou can faintly hear a breeze from out past the garden, the rustling of leaves in its wake.  

And then Satoru is suddenly laughing. 

He’s laughing out loud. Properly, infectiously, the golden light overhead picking out flecks of silver in his hair. He’s holding onto the table to steady himself— and something scratches inside Getou’s chest then, because he remembers the sound. He remembers. He remembers the sound of Satoru’s laughter so strongly, the familiarity of it like dancing, that the thought ‘it’s been so long’ cuts so deeply through him he’s half-afraid he’s said it out loud. Half-afraid, not half-certain. 

“You remembered,” Satoru says brightly, and Getou doesn’t feel safe. 

“Of course.” It takes everything to keep his voice calm. “That was the mission where you scared me half to death. Multiple times.” 

“Oh, yeah, do you remember the lamp—?” begins Satoru, and then he’s laughing again. 

Getou watches him evenly, waiting for the laughter to subside. There is an itch he feels, now; an itch not unlike the pull of a trigger, the command he gives his own curses to kill. 

He should get back home. 

He needs to get back home.

After a minute — even though it feels, strangely, like both too short of a moment and too long of an eternity — Satoru finally regains control of himself. He passes a hand over his face, looking impossibly even more relaxed than he did a mere minute ago. “So,” he says breathlessly. “Anyway. What were we talking about? Oh, right. Your enemies. So, who else, Suguru?”

Getou hums pensively.

“You really can’t think of anyone?” says Satoru. 

“Not one powerful enough to send me traveling back,” replies Getou. “I think you’re the only one strong enough to touch me.” 

“Of course I am,” Satoru says proudly. “Wait, also. I know I’ve asked this before, but what’s the last thing you remember?”

Getou frowns. There is a very faint, vague memory that’s clawing at the back of his mind. Before, he would’ve said that he was sleeping, that the girls were next door dozing off in their shared bed, and the rest of his family are in the estate somewhere doing god-knows-what in the middle of the night. But now, he’s not so sure. There seems to have been something that he hasn’t pieced together. That he hasn’t recalled. 

Getou unthinkingly flexes his right arm, just to make sure that it’s there. 

“I…”

But before he can answer, Satoru flinches. 

It’s a minute gesture. It doesn’t escalate. Satoru flinches, and then immediately schools his face into complete neutrality— but Getou knows that expression. Satoru has never been that good at hiding his hurt, not in front of him. 

Satoru must’ve read something in Getou’s face, too, because he quickly shakes his head. “I’m fine. This is just—” 

“How long has it been again?” asks Getou. “Since that mission.”

Satoru makes a complicated expression. 

“You know what I’m talking about,” says Getou. “The one where you got poisoned.”

Satoru looks about to lie for half a second, but smartly decides against it. Face going rather red, his body is all coiled, hurt, and if one looks closely enough (which Getou is) his fingers are shaking in paper-thin movements, pressing into the table hard enough to splinter. 

“Satoru.”

“One month,” Satoru sighs, though it comes out shaky. 

Getou sighs. He promptly rises from his seat, and rounds the table toward Satoru. 

Satoru’s clearly in a lot of pain. He’s clearly still attempting to hide it from him. Getou is irritated by it, by this, by how this is the one thing about the boy that hasn’t changed in all the years they’ve known each other. He wants to reach out and hold Satoru’s wrist, wants to touch Satoru’s hair. But doing so seems like anathema to something more important, so all he does is hide the emotions from his face and instead says, levelly, “The poison hasn’t worn off completely, then.” 

“It’s just… just annoying.” Satoru waves his hand in dismissal. “It doesn’t hurt that bad or anything. It’s just—” Another flinch. “Um. Annoying, sometimes, because it… reoccurs.” 

“Uh-huh,” says Getou dryly. “Sure it doesn’t hurt.”

“Shut up, Suguru,” says Satoru. “It’s fine. All this did was… was put me off of chocolate for a while. I’ve been eating a lot more candy and ice cream lately, do you remember, hah, although sometimes it interferes with my fun time. I don’t know what’s— ow, what’s up with the random bouts of pain but—”

“I have the antidote.”

Satoru immediately cuts himself off. He stares at Getou, stunned. 

“Not here,” Getou says quietly. He’s kneeling beside Satoru, one hand on his back, his posture uncharacteristically rigid. “I had it back in my world. Not here.” 

Satoru continues to stare. 

“…You could say I’ve spoken to Rin,” says Getou. 

Satoru opens his mouth. Closes it. Getou tries to make his own face as unreadable as possible. “You have? What happened?”

“Come on now. I’m not going to give you any spoilers for your future,” says Getou. “You should find that out yourself.” 

Satoru huffs. “So stingy.”

“Got a lot of lip for someone who’s keeled over.” 

Satoru pouts in response. Or at least, he attempts to, but given the way his body is enduring the remnants of human poison right now, it ends up looking more like a grimace. Getou has never liked seeing that on him. 

“Let me see if there’s anything that can help,” says Getou. He glances around the room, searching for water, or balm, or tea, and even pats down his own yukata for good measure. “Unfortunately, I don’t know what’s contained in that antidote since I’ve never looked into it. It was only years later that I—”

He freezes.

There is something in his sleeve. 

Satoru has been watching him closely, so he notices the pause. “What?” he asks, eyes blinking up in surprise. “What happened, Suguru?”

Getou tries to reason this out.

He tries to reason this out, but comes away with nothing. Because when he reaches into his yukata sleeve to fish the object out, what ends up in his hand is a vial of dark liquid.

The antidote.

Satoru stares at it. “What is that? Are you…?” It takes a second for the possibility to dawn on him. When it does, he quickly snaps up, looking at Getou in disbelief. “Suguru?”

Getou doesn’t reply.

“Do you…” says Satoru. “Do you just carry that around?”

No. 

Nothing here makes sense. 

Getou has never carried it around. He never could. The poison that affected Satoru was long gone when Getou got his hands on the antidote, and so he has left it lying on the top drawer of his bedside table, useless and decaying, collecting dust. He shouldn’t have been carrying it around. 

But it is unmistakable, the vial that is currently in his hand. He would recognize it anywhere. 

Nothing here is making sense. 

The time-travel. The way he can’t use his cursed energy. The way he can’t remember exactly where he was. This vial of antidote that is in the pocket of his newly-changed-into yukata, solid and palpable, defying all logic. Getou tries to assemble his reasoning, tries to remember what it is that has gotten him here, but he surfaces with nothing. The logic of it is too shaky for him to chase after. 

“Suguru,” says Satoru. “Do you think that I’m looking for you right now, back in your world?” 

Getou looks up at him. 

Satoru is gazing back, his eyes blue and bright, innocent in the way only his age can allow. The silence between them draws. 

“…Drink this,” says Getou. He takes Satoru’s hand in his, ignoring the way his skin burns underneath, and places the vial in it. “It’s something that will get you to sleep for a bit, and then you’ll feel better afterwards.”

The vial’s potion is dark; almost so black as to appear drab until it is in movement, rippling like liquid wealth. Satoru studies it carefully. There is no trace of suspicion in his eyes, however: he merely regards it with the same curiosity one does at a zoo animal. Blessedly trusting. All pliant like a spoiled cat. 

Satoru brings the vial to his lip, lifts his chin, and downs it in one go. 

If you were my Satoru, Getou thinks— and immediately stops that train of thought from moving further. He watches, instead, as the potion disappears down Satoru’s throat. Watches silently as Satoru finishes the entire thing in audible gulps, as he swallows every last drop. As he sets the vial down on the table, the clink of it drowned out by the quiet, pain-stuttered sounds of his breathing. 

If you were my Satoru, Getou can’t help thinking, you wouldn’t have even looked at me. 

The antidote takes close to a minute to come into effect. Satoru’s face is initially scrunched up, muttering something under his breath that sounds like tastes bitter, yuck, I hate medicine, and at first it seems like nothing will happen. 

But a drowsiness begins to form on his face, after a silence. There is a droopiness to his eyes as they begin to unfocus, hazing out of attention, and then his body is swaying so instantly that Satoru opens his mouth, looking like he’s barely registering it— before he collapses straight down towards the floor. 

Getou catches him in time. 

He places one hand beneath the back of Satoru’s neck, the other beneath his spine. Satoru falls into his arms like a marionette with its strings cut short. His eyes are already closed, his breathing even, completely asleep as his full weight settles, and he looks serene like this, Getou thinks. Serene, and relaxed. Getou can’t remember the last time he was there to see this happen. 

So defenseless, Getou thinks, as he slowly carries him down to the ground. If this were poison, Satoru, I could have killed you. 

(“It’s because I trusted you.”)

Getou stills. 

There is a memory there. Overcast by sounds and blurred at the edges, but there is a memory there. Whispering in the back of his mind. 

What is it?

What is it that he’s recalling? 

Outside, the tree leaves rustle. The moon hangs low over the horizon, yellow through the atmosphere, and Getou turns his head to look toward the sky above where the moonlight illuminates the copses of shrubs in the garden green, freshly shivering in dew. 

(“I knew you wouldn’t kill young shamans for no reason,” said Satoru. “It’s because I trusted you.”)

_____

Fuck, Satoru groaned, still covered by the white blindfolds. 

Getou was behind him, one arm bracing himself against the mattress. He was moving at a hard pace, a fast pace. It wasn’t the way he would like to go about it, but Satoru had been preferring it rougher these days. 

Can we turn around? Getou asked, murmuring the words right into Satoru’s ear. Satoru automatically twitched, clenching tight around him, and even without seeing his expression Getou knew that Satoru must be scolding himself for not controlling his own response. Satoru? Turn around. I want to see your face. 

Satoru shook beneath him. Getou would’ve thought that he was crying, except Satoru did not cry. He never did. 

...No, Satoru whispered. 

In the far recesses of his mind, where everything inconsequential to the present was stored, Getou might have expected as much. It was always like this nowadays. The predictability of Satoru’s reply did nothing to lessen the blow, though, so Getou leaned forward, one hand holding Satoru’s arm, the other wrapped tightly around Satoru’s chest, and his teeth sunk into Satoru’s neck at the same time as he roughly thrust into Satoru, hard. 

Satoru’s sharp gasp was muffled. He was trying to keep his mouth shut. 

This was how it was these days. Satoru could continue to make those broken sounds, those stifled whines— but they were not needy, not begging, no longer as desperate as they were before. Even though it had been years since they were schoolboys together, Getou did miss those sounds. 

But what could that change? Getou had always been hooked on the sort of sunlight boy Satoru was, mesmerized by the glimpses of his hair, his eyes, the folds of clothes around his frame and his unbridled laughter. But Satoru was never like this nowadays. He was always quiet around Getou, stepping around him like stepping through landmine, and the only time Satoru’s voice turned back into himself — into breathlessness, into something resembling the boy Getou knew in his youth — was when they were yearnful enough to fall into bed with each other, and Getou had to close his eyes as he moved behind him in case anything he felt could flare outwards from his bones. 

_____

Perhaps Getou should have known. 

Perhaps he should’ve known why he is here — why he traveled back here — from the beginning. Perhaps it’s always been clear. 

Satoru is still asleep beside him. Suguru hasn’t come back, but he will soon, Getou knows. And so he waits, watching the moonlight play out above the shrubs of plants in the garden beyond. 

Soon, it will be morning. Soon, he’ll have to face this. If he closes his eyes and sleeps, it will only be a wink until dawn comes and creeps inevitably over the horizon, painting everything back in gold. Morning, mourning. What’s the difference in the sound?

Getou waits for footsteps to come. 

He waits for footsteps to come, and when they do, he quietly rises from his seat and makes his way over to his own room. It is with measured carefulness, then, though Getou will refuse to admit, that he makes sure the door slides thoroughly shut behind him before he can witness the sight of Suguru finding his way back to Satoru, his footsteps steady against the ground.

Chapter Text

It’s around eight in the morning when Getou wakes up. 

He blinks awake slowly. The sunlight cants in from the open door, soft and warm in the way only mornings can bring. He wakes, dry in the mouth and certain in his head that something is terribly wrong— but then the surroundings ground him as his sight adjusts, and he is steady again. 

Getou sits up from his futon. He takes a minute to stare out at the garden, and then stands. 

It’s cumbersome to change into the robes from yesterday right away. Getou opens the garden doors and steps outside into the morning air, dressed in the yukata he’s slept in. There’s freshness in the grass today, damp with dew. He soaks in the breeze that smells like winter, lets the taste settle low in his lungs.

There is a figure already there in the garden. 

The boy, still in the uniform he wore last night, seems to have been staring at the bamboo water pouring out into the pond. He turns around at the sound of footsteps. 

Getou sighs. “I forgot you’re also an early riser.” 

Suguru doesn’t look happy about his appearance. As expected, Getou thinks, half wanting to leave him for the vultures. “What do you want?” Suguru says coldly. 

“‘What do I want’,” Getou mimics, with a roll of his eyes. “Please. Is this really how you’d speak to someone who merely wants to go for a morning stroll?” 

“Is that all you’re doing?”

“I’m surprised you have this much mistrust for your own self,” says Getou. “But then again, not that surprised.” 

Suguru glares at him. 

Ignore, ignore, Getou thinks. God, he never realized how much of a fucking pest his younger self is. In lieu of responding to the stupid boy, Getou ambles over towards the only bench in the garden — wooden, splintering at the corners — and sits upon it. “Come.” He pats the empty spot next to him, with a taunting, fake smile that Suguru definitely picks up on. “Let’s have a chat.”

Suguru looks dubious. 

“If you can’t already sense from yesterday,” says Getou, “I barely have any cursed energy, and I can’t use any of my techniques. You have the upper hand here.” 

Suguru hesitates for another second, before walking cautiously over. This little shit, Getou thinks, as he watches Suguru choose the spot furthest away from him on the bench.

“I’m hurt,” says Getou. 

“No, you’re not,” says Suguru. 

That manages, somehow, to quirk Getou’s mouth up into a smile. He doesn’t deign it with a response though, and instead leans back against the benchrest, watching the water trickle down towards the stream with something close to serenity. Close to. These days, all of his peace seems to burn. 

“What did you do to Satoru yesterday?”

“Hmm?” Getou lifts a brow. “Whatever do you mean?” 

“Did you do anything to him?” Suguru’s facing him now. His expression is cold as glass. He looks ridiculous, boring holes through Getou like that, and even though his voice is still impressively controlled, the balled fist on his side looks ready to jump. “I came back to him sleeping.”

“You’re kidding,” gasps Getou. “What an abnormal thing for people to do at nighttime.”

“There was a vial on the table,” snaps Suguru. “He looked fine and was mumbling in his sleep, else I would’ve come for you.” 

“Did you really think I would hurt him?” asks Getou. 

That manages to shut Suguru up for a beat. He purses his lips, fury barely contained. Getou knows what his next words are even before he says them. “You wouldn’t hurt him,” says Suguru, lowering his voice to a much quieter pitch now, “but you would…”

He trails off. The meaning is clear, even unsaid. 

Getou smirks. It’s not one of his kinder smiles, he knows; it’s seeped with derision, with mockery, and Suguru definitely has picked up the darker tones of it by the way his eyes twitch. “You barely touch him. Do you think an older, more mature version of you would?” He tilts his head. “Use your brain.” 

Suguru bites his lip. 

Oh, his anger is so palpable. “I met Rin,” says Getou. “I had her antidote. That was all it was.” 

Suguru blinks. “You what?”

“Sleep gives him time for the potion to take effect in his body,” Getou graciously explains. “Metabolism and all that. Who knows. Bottom line is he’ll be fine when he wakes up.” 

Suguru glances over to their room a few meters away, the direction where Satoru is no doubt sleeping. There are no signs of him stirring inside. 

A long pause stretches.

And then Suguru asks, “When will I meet Rin?” 

God, he’s so demanding. Getou can almost punch him, pulverize his cheekbone to shattered little pieces. “You youths are always so eager to know your future. Take it easy, why don’t you? I’m not in the mood to explain, anyway.” 

“You’re different,” Suguru suddenly says. His brows are furrowed. “Something changed about you. You’re different from me.” 

Getou meets his eyes. There is concern in Suguru’s face, in the rigidness of his jaw, and worry. Plus a thousand other emotions that Getou is too tired now to give name to. He ignores the anger that is spreading through his chest. “No one expects you to stay the same between your teenage years and your adult years. You’re overthinking it.”

Suguru glares at him. 

It’s too irritating to give the boy a more elaborate answer than that, so Getou looks away. He turns his head up to the sky, instead, to watch as several birds flit by— a better alternative than acknowledging the emotion that is boiling in him right now. An emotion that is not exactly anger, not exactly hatred. Something more like ache. 

For a minute or two, they let the crunch of gravel under their feet fill the silence between them. Neither of them wants to give in, it seems, and be the first to break. Suguru is toying with the fabric inside his pocket, presumably doing his level best to come up with as nonchalant a string of words as possible for what he wants to say. Getou lets him get to it in his own time. It takes another full minute, in the end, for Suguru to drop the pretense along with the fabric in his hand.

“Do you,” says Suguru. 

Getou glances at him. 

“Do you...” Suguru clears his throat. He’s not looking back at Getou. His posture is relaxed, shoulders down, arms and legs unwound as he sits casually in his seat, the perfect picture of ease. But Getou knows a performance when he sees it. “Do you and— do I and Satoru…” He makes a vague gesture with his hand.

Ah. 

Getou‘s mouth curves into a smile. 

He turns slowly towards Suguru, draping one arm lazily over the back of the bench. “Hmm? What’s this?” His voice is drawled, low and laughing. “Are you asking if he’ll ever forgive you for stealing his first kiss?”

Suguru immediately jumps and slaps a hand over his mouth. 

Getou has to hold himself back from laughing. “Calm down,” he says, although with the palm covering his mouth it comes out more like kghm dhmn. 

“Shut up,” Suguru whispers angrily. He glances over to the room where Satoru is sleeping, glances frantically to the other side for good measure, and then finally glares at Getou. Oh, this is so much more fun than scamming. “What if he overhears?” 

Getou slaps Suguru’s hand away, rubbing at his mouth. “You’re making more of a ruckus than I am.”

“You can’t just go out and say it like—” 

“You’re the one who asked.” 

Suguru looks ready to kill himself. His cheeks are flushed impossibly red, his mouth tightened into a pale line. Getou knows he is struggling to get his words out right now, torn between kneeing his older version in the nose to feel the satisfaction of blood and keeping his cool for Satoru’s sake. 

Suguru, in the end, chooses the latter. Of course he does. 

“You’re going to shut up,” he hisses, “and not say any of this to Satoru.” 

“Don’t you know it’s rude to point?” says Getou. “I don’t appreciate you jabbing a finger into my face.”

“And whose fault is that?” Suguru says furiously. “You come waltzing in here with no explanation whatsoever, expect us to fully trust you, and choose a moment when I’m not there to give Satoru a vial of unknown antidote. Do you think I don’t know myself enough to know that something is wrong?”

“Doesn’t justify you lacking manners to your elders,” says Getou.

“I don’t like you,” Suguru grits out. “It doesn’t have to be a problem, if you’d just behave.” 

Getou looks at him. Suguru glares back, looking angry enough to punch— and Getou wonders, vaguely, if he’s going to end up get the fucking daylights beat out of him. He looks down at Suguru’s hands, at the stretch of torn skin over his knuckles, and decides that he wouldn’t put it past him. 

Still. 

“Come on now,” says Getou, with a smug smile. “That wasn’t the question you wanted to ask, though, was it?” 

The colours in Suguru’s cheeks rise. 

“You keep forgetting that I know you,” says Getou. 

“If I ask,” Suguru says vexedly, blushing, not quite tight-jawed but getting there, “are you going to tell me?” 

Getou hums. “Do you want to know the truth?”

“I don’t know,” says Suguru. “Do I?”

Getou watches him, the smile still etched on his face. 

Perhaps, in another world, his answer could make a difference. Perhaps there were things that they could have changed, times that they could have saved together— except the Getou of right now would never bring himself to abandon his plans and return to the boy who has been estranged from him for close to a decade. There’s no sense in backing down now. None of it was ever a gamble. But going through this train of thought is like casting a stone into an abyss, void of meaning and deeply useless. 

“…Well,” says Getou, “he kissed you back, didn’t he?”

Suguru’s face goes even redder. 

“God, you’re so exhausting,” says Getou. “As I said before, use your brain.”

“But he was half-delirious,” Suguru says weakly. 

“Was he.” 

“And it was because it helped his pain, wasn't it?” Suguru argues. “Also— also he barely remembers it.”

“Alright,” Getou leans back, crosses his arms, and waves his hand. “I’m done with this conversation. This is pissing me off.” 

“What?” 

“I said I’m done,” says Getou. “You can go and figure it out by yourself.” 

Suguru stares at him, stunned and incredulous. “You’re an asshole.” 

“You only have yourself to blame.” Getou concludes that by rising up from the bench, dusting off the filth from his yukata, and lifting his chin. 

A sparrow darts across the hedges. This ryokan has always been so quiet, he thinks, so still— remembering that for a time he had hated it, chafed at it, at the absurd serenity of the rooms and the garden, at the faux peace the building holds. Trust the monkeys to run it. He wouldn’t have ever come back here, if it weren’t for the fact that it was the only place he and Satoru could return to again and again over the last ten years, a place neither of them could stand to see the other one without. Some irony. 

“Either way,” says Getou, turning to the younger boy, “good news is that you won’t have to put up with this for long. You’ll have some peace of mind; I’ll be out of your hair by the end of the day.” At the barely repressed light that appears on Suguru’s face, Getou’s smiles turn unkind, and he adds: “There’s just one thing I want to do first.” 

Suguru narrows his eyes. “...What?” 

Getou looks down at him. His smile is still fake, though dimmer, perhaps. 

“You two have a low-grade mission today,” he says. “Let me join you.” 

_____

It was a mission that brought them together, a mission that drove them apart. 

Over time, they had gone on fewer and fewer of these missions together. Still though, in Getou’s mind, they were always steeped in gold, no matter how arduous or painful they were. In his mind, Satoru was seventeen, blue-eyed and young and fiercely devoted. Some nights, Getou dreamed they were back in their younger years, fighting together with the world collapsing around them, and sometimes Satoru would take his outstretched hand. Some nights, they were alone in the skies. 

None of that existed now. 

You’re not staying the night? asked Getou. 

Satoru was buttoning up his shirt, sitting at the foot of the bed. His back was slouched, his white blindfolds still wrapped around his eyes. There was no answer. 

That annoyed Getou, but he didn’t show it. All he did, in place of vulnerability, was shrug as uncaringly as he could and smile. You can at least get a couple hours of sleep in, Satoru. 

Satoru didn’t say anything. He didn’t turn back to look at him. His hands were moving, slowly and measuredly, across the folds of his shirt, his pants. Even though this had been happening for the past ten years now, the carefulness of his movements was an unbearable, terrible sight to see. 

So much care for my sleep, Satoru eventually said, quietly. And not a single thought for my back. Some gentleman you are. 

It was childish. It was petty. Both of them knew that it was Satoru who had been asking for it to be rougher, to be harder every time they agreed to meet in this lonesome ryokan. As if the violence of sex could wash away anything between us, Getou thought, but he didn’t say that. He only stared silently as Satoru finished dressing, as the silence hung like cargo rope between them. He only stared silently as Satoru grabbed his things, put on his shoes, and left the room without a single look back his way. 

_____

It was a mission that brought them together, a mission that drove them apart. 

“Suguru, watch this!” 

Getou isn’t sure which of them Satoru’s yelling at, but he’s turning his head anyway. 

Satoru is up in the sky, laughing as he swings his leg. The palm of his feet cuts through the air and smashes against the head of the curse that tried to attack him. The poor thing crashes against the ground in a matter of seconds, landing in a cloud of smoke, gone in the debris. 

Satoru is up above them, cackling in joy. He’s laughing. God, he’s laughing. Getou lets the sound wash across the nape of his neck, unraveling him stitch by stitch, every seam he’d painstakingly drawn closed and shrouded himself under. Has it always been this simple for Satoru to be happy? All this boyish radiance, undone throughout the years.

“Impressive,” Getou shouts, clapping indulgently. He ignores the underbreath mutterings Suguru makes beside him. 

Satoru grins. He’s brilliant like this, basked in the glow of the undying sunlight. “Wasn’t that cool?” He shouts, flying down toward them with his hair windswept. “That was a new technique I discovered! They can’t get to me because of Infinity, and at the same time I’m able to bring them up to the sky and kick ‘em to the ground.”

“Yes, very cool,” Getou says genially. “I can also say that you’ve improved your techniques a whole lot over the years.” 

Satoru looks ecstatic.

“So,” Suguru grumbles, “what do we do now? The curses are all exorcised. The mission’s done.” 

“Little Suguru is weirdly grumpy today.” Satoru peers at him. “Is it because I killed more curses than you? Or is it the weather?” 

“I’m not grumpy,” Suguru says crossly. “And don’t call me ‘little Suguru’.” 

“How else am I gonna differentiate you two?” 

“Hopefully by him disappearing.” 

“You’re definitely grumpy,” Satoru decides, sounding delighted. He hums thoughtfully for a moment, his arms clasped behind his back— and then, in a moment of cosmic karma, his voice rises a little louder when he adds: “Maybe having children will mellow you out, after all.”

Crap. 

Suguru blinks. “What?”

“Oh,” says Getou, “let’s not—” 

“That’s apparently what happens, Suguru,” declares Satoru. “You have daughters in the future.” 

...Silence. 

More silence. 

Suguru, as it turns out, looks even more shocked that Satoru had. 

He whips his head over at Getou so fast, it’s a miracle it didn’t detach. There’s a whole mix of emotions in his expression: betrayal, anger, confusion, bafflement, the whole nine yards. Getou holds up both of his hands. “I didn’t say that.” 

“What?” Satoru yelps. “Yes, you did!”

“I lied,” Getou says quickly. “I don’t have daughters. They’re adopted. It’s a complicated thing and it’ll take a while to get into it, but no, I did not have biological children.”

“You have daughters,” echoes Suguru, looking like he’s still processing. 

“With,” says Satoru, sounding strange, “with who?”

“Million-dollar question, isn’t it?” says Getou. “Haha. Anyway, now that we’ve finished the mission, why don’t we start heading back to campus? Yaga is still waiting for you two, I expect.”

Satoru and Suguru exchange glances with each other. They both look like they have more to say, except neither of them ventures. To ask out loud the questions they’re itching to know the answer to, Getou realizes, means revealing something about themselves that neither wants the other to hear. It’s hilarious.

And even now — ten years since he’d left and threw away the keys — they still can’t communicate, can they? Ten years. A long span of radio silence, of growing old apart from each other, of growing brittle over time. A long span to recall these memories they made in their youth— but Getou still remembers. He remembers today, even, remembers what mission this was, how simple it was, how the curses weren’t worth their efforts. He knows what the two boys will do after this. Knows that they will come back home, go into Suguru’s room, and play Digimon until dawn breaks. They will both be dead tired tomorrow, lugging themselves sleepy through the halls until Shoko laughs at them. They’ll have a good week next week, a peaceful week. 

And here he is. 

Here Getou stands, years later — after Riko, after Haibara, after the countless bodies of shamans who only wanted to protect the ungrateful — and he’s looking at Tokyo in 2005, at the encroaching tallow-lights from a passing car and he still thinks, I did not make a mistake. Even if he’s looking at Satoru with the sun in his eyes, he doesn’t think he has made a mistake. 

“Before we head back, though,” says Getou, with an easy smile, “I’d like to talk to Satoru privately, if you guys don’t mind.”

They turn towards him. He meant for his words to sound casual. His voice didn’t even waver — he was careful — but there must be something in his tone that suggests otherwise, because Suguru is frowning at him. 

“Oh.” Satoru gives Suguru a quick glance. “Yeah, okay. That’s fine with me.” 

Suguru catches his eyes. You good with that? Satoru seems to be asking. Suguru shrugs, shoulders jerking, like he’s trying to shake off an insect— but he’s still scowling at Getou. He seems to have picked up something from either Getou’s voice or his words. Keen in all the wrong aspects. 

“Unless,” says Satoru, looking back and forth between them, his smile teasing, “you’re about to beg on your knees to let you stay here. Because if that’s the case, then maybe Suguru should weigh in.” 

“You’re very funny,” says Getou. 

“Hey,” Suguru interrupts. “Will you be back?” 

Getou looks at him, slowly and evenly, and smiles. 

“You’re fine,” he tells his younger self. “We will be just a minute.” And there, keen as he is, Suguru has registered that something about his words aren’t as truthful as they sound. He nods anyway, though imperceptibly, hesitatingly— but with the city skyline behind him ensconcing them in blue, Getou doesn’t feel like getting one last look at himself. 

He turns on his heels and walks. 

He doesn’t need to hear footsteps — doesn’t need to hear a voice, or sense a presence — to know that Satoru is following closely behind him.

_____

You’re launching an attack on Tokyo? 

Getou turned around. 

Satoru was standing at the door, leaning sideways against the wall with his arms folded. Shadows pooled around the tense knot of his stance. The ryokan was steeped in a cloudless night tonight, moonless, the quiet of the building making Satoru’s words sound louder than they were. 

Satoru, Getou called cheerfully over his shoulder. You’re early today. 

Satoru neither replied nor uncrossed his arms. He remained standing, motionless, and even though Getou couldn’t see his eyes beneath the white blindfolds, he was sure Satoru’s expression was stony and vacant. His feelings had always been sealed away for the past ten years, it seemed. 

And then Satoru was walking towards him. 

His steps were slow and careful, as though he was still halfway through deciding whether or not he should tread. Every foot forward felt painstaking. Getou stood by the window with his arms folded, waiting patiently— watching as Satoru maneuvered around the creaks in the floorboards like the heedful man he wasn’t. Watching, as Satoru came to a stop in front of him. His chin was tilted slightly down, as if avoiding Getou’s gaze. 

Hmm? Getou kept his smile on. 

Satoru hesitated. Getou expected him to snap. He expected exasperation or disdain, a mad talking-to, frosting up all the rigid air between them. Fuck you, how could you do this? Who are you to think that your plan could ever work? But instead, Satoru only lifted his hands from his sides, and slowly unwrapped the white blindfold around his eyes.

Once loop around his head. Then another, and another. They were undone gradually over a minute that felt endless, and then, when Satoru lifted his head to look at him, Getou was finally met with blue. 

Getou stared at him. The entire act of it felt wrong somehow. Satoru never removed his blindfolds around his presence anymore; his eyes were always shielded beneath them, a protective layer of a child. The only time they were ever loose enough to tumble around his face was when he was lying on the mattress, his limbs tangled up in the sheets, his mouth open to call out a name in a voice so tinged with loss— and even then Satoru would always look away or place his arm over his face, hiding. 

Suguru, Satoru was saying now, his voice so soft it was almost a whisper. His eyes — despite being seen, despite directly meeting Getou’s head-on — were void of any emotions. They were simply blue. Do you have to?

Getou watched him, listening for thunder. Ten whole years like a lifetime, he thought, and put one foot in front of the other, stepping to close the frigid distance between them until they were eye-to-eye. Satoru didn’t flinch away, didn’t drop his impassive, hollow gaze. He stood still as Getou raised a hand and slowly, softly caressed down the skin of Satoru’s cheek. Ten whole years like a lifetime— their bodies weren’t foreign to each other anymore. 

Come on. Getou’s smile was gentle. They had spent years together, even longer years apart, but Getou’s blood still ran warm. It was a little thing he couldn’t help, what his skin remembered. What his bones still clung to ten years after he’d turned and left. One last night with me? 

Satoru gazed at him for a long moment, wordlessly — quiet amidst the darkness of the room and the silence that enveloped them — and then slowly closed his eyes. 

_____

“Where are we going, Suguru?” 

Getou leads them down a narrow alleyway, far from the eyes of any passing onlookers. It’s a long way from where Suguru is waiting for them, but Satoru follows compliantly, as he always does. As he always had when it mattered. 

“Nowhere in particular,” Getou says truthfully. “I just wanted to spend some time with you.” 

He hears Satoru’s footsteps falter. “Is something wrong?” 

“Nothing’s wrong,” says Getou. “I won’t hurt you.”

“That’s not what I meant.” 

It’s approaching evening. There’s the smell of autumn high in the air, of damp leaves and splintered wood, of gravel crunched beneath the passing tyres of cars. The sun is so heavy with warmth on his skin that he can almost believe this moment is real. 

“I know.” Getou smiles. “You never took me for a villain.” 

He can tell by the shift of shadows, by the level rhythm of his steps that Satoru is eyeing him carefully, searching for any indication that Getou will act out of his own safety. He understands Satoru well enough to know. 

How many times have they met, during those ten years? Twice near yours, once at mine, too many of them deep into the night when everything is more vague. None of them ever made you happy, Getou thinks, but you kept coming back to me. As though with enough time they would return to who they used to be. As though one day Getou would turn around at that lonesome ryokan and find Satoru smiling at him, that smile where he’s all sun, where he’s full of boyish youth, a laugh hidden there. As though Getou would step forward and kiss that hidden laugh, press his lips to the corner of Satoru’s mouth and swallow the truth.

Don’t look back. 

Couldn’t that have been enough? Three whole years like the blink of an eye. Three whole years of living like kings in the daze of triumph, punch-drunk on the high of their own immortality. They were both too young, back then. Neither of them turned out to be who they thought they were.

“You are not,” begins Getou, and stops himself. 

Satoru quickens his pace to match his. “What did you say, Suguru?”

Getou slowly turns and faces him. 

Satoru’s steps come to a halt. Beyond the walls on either side of them, the sky stretches as far they can see, cloudless, an ocean of blue. Maybe Getou can stay here forever, here with Satoru under this endless sky. Here, in his mind. 

“I know you aren’t real,” says Getou. 

Satoru frowns at him, uncomprehending. Getou looks at him and wonders if the sudden throb in his chest means healing or infection. He isn’t sure he wants to know. 

“I know this is only in my own head,” Getou says quietly. “But I wanted to see you one last time.” 

Satoru looks at him, and it feels like five hundred feet of freefall, his heart too close to the open air. All his memories come rushing back— and it is then, standing before Satoru in the haze of the approaching dusk, that Getou realizes he was never going to die alone. Satoru would’ve never allowed for it. 

“What do you mean, Suguru?” 

Getou smiles at him. “I didn’t make a mistake, doing what I did,” he says softly. “But I wanted to tell you one last thing.” 

Satoru blinks. Getou uses that pause to walk towards him, closing the distance between them. He leans forward, eye-to-eye with Satoru, and throws down the artifice of his own rhetoric to say:  

“———, ————.” 

Satoru’s eyes widen. 

Getou leans back a little, smiling. It’s the closest thing to the truth he has, dragged out into the light from under his layers of artisan-grade refusal to look too closely at himself. “I didn’t get to say it back,” he whispers. “I wanted to, but I didn’t know if it would make it worse for you. So here it is.” 

Satoru’s eyes are fixated on him, wide and shocked. 

Then he begins to flush, bright red from the tip of his ears to the curve of his neck, his hand flying up to place embarrassedly on his ear, the one where Getou had just spoken into. “You— what are you,” he stammers. “Gross, what was— what was that? That’s so embarrassing! Why’d you say that?!” 

Getou laughs. “I wasn’t the one who came up with it.” 

Satoru’s blush covers his entire face. He’s frowning, though it doesn’t look as menacing as he probably means it to look. “What the hell?” 

Getou smiles. “Are you embarrassed?” 

“Of course I am.” Satoru flushes deeper. “Jeez, who wouldn’t be? Why’d you say that, Suguru?” 

Getou can’t help but laugh again. 

It doesn’t make it all right, but it does make it enough. Ten years without ever saying anything truthful to each other— trust them to have come up with the worst time to do it. 

And there. That was all. 

That was it. That was all he needed, all he came here for. Getou feels laid bare, an opening door on a way out of this place. 

“Suguru,” says Satoru. “What’s wrong?” 

Getou looks at him. Satoru’s head is tilted slightly in concern, his eyes directly meeting Getou’s head-on over the rims of his sunglasses. 

It’s always hard to uproot someone who has taken ahold of you, be it flower or strangler fig. You are not my Satoru, Getou thinks, something in him tearing apart. You don’t have his memories, you don’t have his years. You are not him, after all. But Satoru stands there, young and bright and so full of life— and Getou wishes otherwise, wishes to the gods that their story could have been written in ink. 

But that was not them. They were charcoal on a page, not ink. Most love stories are. 

“Nothing,” Getou says, and quietly smiles. “Nothing at all.” 

Satoru stares at him.

His smile still soft and sincere, Getou takes one step forward — closing the distance between them. Satoru watches him, eyes wide and warm. 

Then Getou’s arms slowly, gently wrap around Satoru. 

God, he thinks, for one last second, I wish—

—and as Getou leans into the hug, everything goes white. 

_____

Shoko. 

Shoko turned around. 

Gojo stood still as a statue, his eyes covered by the white blindfolds at the entrance to the morgue. Getou was in his arms. 

Oh. Shoko watched them. Something in her had broken. The aftermath of the attack on Tokyo had numbed it out for her, temporarily grazing away everything that made her human and left the pain of this as tiny as a paper-cut. It would hurt later when she’s alone, she knew; but right now Gojo’s arms weren’t even shaking with the weight of Getou. The trail of blood leading out of the room was not yet dried. 

Don’t destroy his body, said Gojo. He still…

He trailed off. There was a deep hollowness to his words, Shoko heard, and a horribly even tone to the way he spoke. She could not see his eyes. 

(If this were ten years ago, she would have asked him what was wrong and then let Getou deal with it. If they had been younger, Shoko wouldn’t have had to think.)

But they were adults now. They were adults, and that meant understanding that helping someone grieve did not always require your company. It meant knowing when to stay. 

I’ll give you some time, Shoko said, and rose up from her seat. 

Gojo didn’t move. He didn’t give any indication that he was looking at her. He merely stood still — Getou’s body unmoving in his arms, the silence of the room a six-feet pull under — and did not utter a single word as Shoko walked past him. 

And that was unsurprising, wasn’t it. Vocal as he was about the things that didn’t matter, Gojo Satoru was not someone trained to express his needs. Gojo Satoru was not someone who spoke about his own pain, not someone who could ever voice it— and the only person who could ever read his hurt without him mentioning it for the past thirteen years was already gone.

So Shoko made her way out of the morgue. 

She walked down the halls. Out past the gardens. Through one building, then another, and another. The air cuts cold against her skin. 

...She would always remember, afterwards, that Gojo Satoru never called for her back. 

She would always remember, afterwards, that it took three hours for Gojo to emerge from the morgue. Three hours after she’d left him, he came out of those doors alone and cut across the same halls, the same gardens, the same buildings as she did, and had found Shoko at the back of their dormitory with a cigarette between her lips. 

And she would always remember, afterwards, that the moment he noticed her eyes on him, Gojo had raised up his hand and smiled. 

.